“The apartment was a small two-bedroom apartment. The argument is it’s impossible for this much violence without the other person not waking up and knowing what’s going on,” said Prosecutor Steve Sonnega. “They were both there. Mr. Ingalls took the position as a caregiver living with the mother.”

Ingalls called Mooresville police on the morning of Nov. 23, 2016, to report an unresponsive child.

While Brayson was rushed to the hospital, the first officer on the scene spotted “a large amount of blood in the bedroom” where the boy was found.

During the initial stage of the investigation, Richhart told the court he was able to examine the cell phones of both Ingalls and Price.

Ingalls, Price’s boyfriend since 2014 and the father of the couple’s toddler son also named Steven, allegedly used his cell phone to conduct internet searches the month before Brayson’s death with topic lines such as, “kill my mentally retarded step-son, torture techniques, beat child with fragile X abuse, I want to kill my autistic child, painful ways to die, most painful torture,” according to the PC.